There’s a countdown going on the Dave website to mark the confirmation start date of Red Dwarf X (according to Rob Lewellyn it’ll likely be the end of September. There’s a bit of a buzz on this one (more so than the last 3). The live audiences are back, giving the show it’s homely, old school, theatrical feel that was lost back in Series… um… VII.

I love Red Dwarf, so far ahead of it’s time it’s cheerful and apocalyptic at the same time. It’s capacity to just be damn silly sets it miles apart from anything else. I started watching as a teenager, when I was bought the videos of Red Dwarf I and II, having asked for any Red Dwarf video that could be found after watching 10 minutes of Polymorph in Red Dwarf III before my Nan switched it off. From The End, through to Confidence and Paranoia and Better Than Life, it wasn’t what I remembered but it was awesome none the less. Absorbing all of the books that inspired it the only thing I haven’t heard is the audio book.

Firmly trapped in the era of the Crystal Maze, Knightmare and Sylvester McCoy’s Doctor Who this was a time when Sci-fi didn’t take itself too seriously (alla Battlestar, Star Wars and Star Trek) and I loved it twice as much for that. I even drew most avidly a comic strip called Star Nutters, lifting pretty much directly art and ideas from Red Dwarf, Val Semeiks’ Lobo and Hitchhikers (with a few ideas of my own thrown in).

I lived Dwarf for years and steadily, as I’ve got older, I kind of left it behind. But I’d love the idea of going back to then and watching I-VI back to back one last time. Maybe one day I’ll be able to do I-X.